Contracted Works: Blessed by the Horsemen
by Spiritblade
Summary: Another character profile written on behalf of Traingham's epic fanfic: 'By Your Enrapture'. Visit his story and give him your support, everyone.
1. Chapter 1

**_The Lawgiver blessed by Horsemen: the Story of the Master of Legions_**

**_A Magister Negi fanfic for Traingham's 'By Your Enrapture'_**

**_Written by Spiritblade_**

_Disclaimer:_This story is written on behalf of Traingham for his Magister Negi Magi fanfic, 'By Your Enrapture'. I do not own his story (isn't that obvious?) and the franchise (for if I tried, I will find an army of very angry people on my doorstep). But the Magic World is large enough for everyone, and holds enough wonders to rival Creation.

I give Traingham the right to change the story, so that it fits with his.

Also, one last minor detail: there WERE some minor spelling mistakes and gaffes in the draft I gave Traingham. The fault is mine and not his.

(O)

It began with the Great War.

It began when the arrogant and the ambitious reached for godhood and sought the means by which to make their dreams a reality. It began when powers whose time had passed long ago and those who wished to renew their war against the King of Heaven heeded these foolish princes and kings and showed them the way. But these potentates soon learned – or had known all along – that there was a price to pay to drink from the chalice that would grant them that which they desired.

And they paid it willingly. The _Mundus Magicus_ had two superpowers. To the North was the Empire of Hellas, which was populated by demi-humans, those who had in their veins the blood of the mystical races that were born – or created – in the First and Second Ages. To the south were the human-dominated lands of the Republic of Megalomesembria. For centuries, the two had lived in peace, until an incident turned two great allies against one another. That incident I speak of was the assassination of Hellas's Emperor and Crown Prince at the hands of members of the Devout, a Megalomesembrian extremist faction who wanted to bring the 'impure' Empire of Hellas under the righteous rule of Megalomesembria. One could liken them to the Old World's Nazis and Fascists, and one would not be far off the mark. But the Devout, like so many extremists factions within both Hellas and Megalomesembria, were puppets of a group called the Conclave.

It was they, these cursed traitors, who brought two ancient lands to near ruin; they who sold out their countries and their people for that which their masters – or mistresses – would neither share nor grant. Their schemes had left thousands dead and millions homeless. Cities as old as the world burned or fell from the skies, and the earth and sky were torn asunder as the sons and daughters of this ancient world – my home-world – turned their weapons on those they had once called friend and lover.

Into this inferno were born many heroes. The Thousand Master and the Ala Rubra – the Red Wing, as they were known in the tongue of the Old World – were but one of many. It was they who brought an end to the war. It was they who rallied the world in the face of an ancient enemy who sought to regain their rightful place as rulers of both the Old and Magical World. The final battle was fought in the ruins of the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Ostia, the once grand metropolis whose majesty and legend was still evident in the floating islands and the ten thousand spires that pierced the azure skies in homage to the Unconquered Sun. In a sea of fire, amidst skies where gods, angels and heroes crossed swords, legends were made and fear trembled in the face of defiance. There, in the Imperial Manse, which stood at the city's heart, the Thousand Master Nagi Springfield defeated Ansera, the First and Forsaken Angel, the demi-goddess whose schemes had nearly led to the destruction of the world.

It cost the Thousand Master dearly, though. For a month, he laid in a coma, guarded by his comrades in the Ala Rubra, his lovers and the royal guard and battle-mages of two nations. When he awoke, it was to the cries of a jubilant people, grateful for the part he had played for bringing a terrible war to an end. We know that he did not stay in the capital of Hellas for long. The last time the Magic World had heard of Nagi Springfield was when he imprisoned the Dark Mistress Evangeline A.K. McDowell, an act that served to earn him the favour of the dreaded vampire queen's many enemies. The manner in which he had done so had earned the Thousand Master the admiration of even his most vindictive detractors. He defeated the Dark Evangel not through the sorcerous might which had laid the First and Forsaken Angel low, but by tricking her. Gods, I wish I could have been there when it happened. But enough; you already know this. You know about the exploits of the Thousand Master and his comrades.

Rather than wax lyrical on what you already know, I will instead tell you of what you do not. I will tell you of those men and women whose actions would never equal those of the Thousand Master's but who, like he, delivered the despairing and fearful to a safe harbour. And among those heroes, there are those who are reviled like the Anathema of old.

Maybe I should start at the beginning, and introduce myself while I am at it. My name is William Enders. I am a student at the Ariadne Mage School. I am – was – an inhabitant (one of the last few surviving, anyway) of the town of St. Germaine, which was located on the borders of Ostia, and which was destroyed in one of the last battles that saw to the deaths or imprisonment of the First and Forsaken Angel's generals and champions. I am also the squire and ward of one of the top agents of the Mage Council known as the Master of Legions. It is about him that I write this entry, one that is a repudiation of what most would know about my guardian.

I do not deny that he is a smug, self-absorbed twit whose insolent grin is all that would be needed to start a second Great War. Nor do I deny that his love life would have made even the Caliphs of Hellas green with envy – and the religious authorities in the Old World to excommunicate him in short order. But those are minor issues; the real reason why so many hate and fear him is because of his level of mastery in the Dark Arts. Dark magic is inherently corrosive; it drains the user of his or her very life force in addition to tainting the soul. One's flaws become more pronounced and it becomes more and more difficult for the Dark Mage to rein in his appetites as he progresses further down the Dark Road. But in return, the Mage is bestowed with power equal to that of an Archmage. He has it in him to break the very land and set the sky ablaze. That which was once beyond his reach soon becomes possible. Demons kneel in fealty and the ruling Princes of the Night extend a hand to those whom they deem worthy of patronage.

None walk the Dark Road without good reason. The price, as I stated before, is a high one. No mage with an ounce of common sense crosses this Rubicon without knowing that it leads to your burning the bridge. And my master knows that. His first step onto the Dark Road began when he was but ten years old when his city came under attack by a demonic army led by one of Hell's five ruling sovereigns: Sammael, Queen of Wrath. In the midst of that fierce battle, the Queen of Wrath came upon my master, and arrested the sword stroke that would have killed him as it did so many others. Instead, she asked my master's name and presented an offer. In exchange for serving as her agent on Earth, she would spare his city in which he lived.

Believe me, watching your home burn down around your ears and hearing your friends being turned to mincemeat a street away is a good enough reason to say yes – which my master did. And he knew what he was getting himself into the moment he took the hand of the Queen of Wrath and pledged his fealty. The rest, as they say, is history – some of which I think is best that I keep to myself. Now the question arises: why him and no other? Why a boy who can barely cast a basic _Firebolt_ Charm without burning his fingers and not one who is the school's most promising protégé? Why not the many warriors and mages who defended the city? Certainly, they would have been more suitable for whatever the Queen of Wrath had in mind.

The only answer I can think of after much thought and debate with the demons I have met – some of whom had taken part in the attack on my master's city – is this: Empress Sammael, Queen of Wrath and one of Hell's Five Sovereigns, sealed a pact with my master on a whim. But it was a whim which paid off handsomely. My master is regarded by many demons and rebel angels in the Queen of Wrath's army as one of its chief officers. The fact that my master has at his command numerous Heroic Spirits to act as his honour guard and advisors, as well as an elite legion of no less than 300 lesser demons (which I must point out, is a term given unto all supernatural beings regardless of divine or unholy heritage) makes him one of the most powerful (and uncrowned) Mage Princes in the _Mundus Magicus._

Indeed, my master could have made himself just that, his every whim catered to, instead of licking the boots (or pissing on it, as he so often does) of the Mage Council. And yes, I asked him for the reason why he would choose to work for the very organization that would do to him what the Romans did to Jesus Christ. And being the smug bastard that he is, he tells me that the Mage Council is predictable. Everyone (at least most of them) in the organization wants him dead – but every last one of them wants to be credited for the kill (and not in a way that would bring the wrath of the elders of the Council down on their head). The probability of one pack of assassins screwing up the plans of another, in this instance, becomes astronomical.

And it's not only the Holy Order sycophants in the Mage Council who want him dead. I heard rumours that no less than two Dark Lords and three Dark Mistresses want him in the ground. The Lycans have a bounty for the one who devastated the Winter Fang tribe (which my master claim was an accident – he had not meant for that First Age war-strider to go berserk and flatten the tribe's chieftain and reduce his sons to paste). The Heavenly Host want him shackled and locked up in a prison at the edge of Creation for seducing a high-ranking member of one of its Choirs. That incident caused quite a scandal, let me tell you (and left said female angel very, VERY happy). Oh, don't worry – it gets better here on out: the High Elves have not forgiven him for burning half of the Ancient Forest in his attempt to throw a Pit Lord and its retinue back into the Hell it crawled out of, and are most likely trying to arrange an accident in the not so distant future. And the Night Elves – that was the worst one and the most tragic. The Great War – and the Conclave – had corrupted one of its guardian demigods, and it had run amok, destroying several Night Elf communities and corrupting the very land it had once protected. The Mage Council had sent my master in, along with three companies of Holy Knights, to aid the Night Elves to try to seal the demigod. It was an endeavour, however, that came with an underlying warning to the Night Elf mages – they had best succeed in their attempt to heal the psychic wounds of the tormented demigod, or the Mage Council will put him down. Many Night Elves blame my master for that night, but I say that if he had not been there, the nation of Ashenvale would have lost many of its most powerful sorcerers and shamans.

The Dark Evangel once said in a rare interview given to Lil' Mika, the vampire nation's foremost journalist that hatred is a poor reward for heroism, and Death a poorer one for a lifetime of suffering. It makes me wonder who she had in mind when she spoke those words.

Lady Theresa had once told me that the Mage Council tolerated my master for one reason and one reason alone: they need him. They need someone of my master's calibre, a bloody sword that even the dreaded have good reason to fear. And he needs them as well. They are the means to which he can fulfil his oath to the Queen of Wrath when she appointed him her Huntsman. I have good reason to believe that Empress Sammael is fond of my master. She has lavished him with gifts and power, most of which allow my master to channel the tainted energies which would have destroyed him long ago and which allow him to smite his enemies. If she disapproves of his decision to join her enemies or his choice of companions, she does not show it.

My master treasures his friends and lovers. The first are but a handful as most are leery of being associated with a practitioner of the Dark Arts. Most are underworld figures, many of who owe my master a favour that they have no choice but to honour lest he come back a second time to do to them what their enemies could not. The second are (slightly) more numerous, and who warm my master's bed with a frequency bordering on scandalous. Of the 12 female Heroic Spirits that my master has contracted with, 11 share his bed and are most likely plotting to have his daughters swarm him when the time is right. They are not alone. My master's two Ministra Magi are most likely plotting the same thing. The first is Majikina Mina, a shrine priestess who works in the Old World and whom my master had fought alongside on many an occasion. She works as my master's liaison to the Kyoto Mage Association and is one of its finest exorcists and teachers. It was she who created many of the Charms and wards that my master uses to bleed the Taint from his body. The second of my master's Ministra is a woman named Rikku Armisael, who was born in Hellas and who is part of the Morning Star Adventurers' Guild, whom my master had met in the fourth year of his service to the Mage Council and who he and Lady Mina had met when the Devout were pursuing her and her party for the artefact they had managed to unearth from Ostia (which I later learnt consisted of a saddle belonging to the demonic steed of the Apocalypse which my master later rode, a suit of super-heavy jade plate latter worn by Lord Bayard, and three Daiklaves, which my father allowed Rikku and her party to keep as a reward for foiling the schemes of the Devout).

I cannot help but compare my master's lovers to the celestial bodies in the sky. Lady Mina, Lady Rikku and my master's Heroic Spirits are like the moon, the sun and the stars. Some, like Lady Mina and the Heroic Spirit Lilith, are like the moon – wise, gentle, seductive and quiet. Others, like Lady Rikku and the Heroic Spirit Strike, are like the sun – fierce, passionate, warm and sensuous. I have to admit that, without them, my master's personality and temperament would be less than pleasant. With them, he can contemplate a future, even if it is one where they will run him ragged in ways that would make my nose bleed and cause a Saint to faint.

I met them all, that day, five years ago, when my home of St. Germaine was in flames. The local garrison had been all but crushed by the Anathema that was one of the First and Forsaken Angel's generals. The horde that was sacking the city was all but unopposed, and any aid was hours – maybe even days – away. I prayed for a miracle. I remembered praying even as a black-armoured monster lifted a massive sword to end my life, instants before a white-robed, orichalum-armoured rider mounted on a demonic steed thundered past and cut my would-be killer in half with a Daiklave. I remembered the thunderous horn-blast that shook the city, a sound of defiance and a challenge to its destroyers. I remembered a beautiful white-haired priestess clad in Japanese armour leap from the flames, holding a power-bow in one hand, surrounded by Fair Folk Cataphracts, their gleaming, crystal spears ready to meet any threat. I remembered a blonde-haired woman pull me up, a jade Reaper Daiklave resting on her shoulder, a smile on her lips, as over a dozen Beast-men and humans wearing Gunzosha battle-armour and levelling reaper cannons and bolt-guns at the advancing tide of monsters materialized behind her.

'_Don't be afraid, kiddo.'_

And you know what? I haven't been afraid ever since. I was a child when I lived in St. Germaine. I was a man when I left it. And I will be more when I leave my master's home for the last time. My master and I were born in the days of the Great War. We will die when it is but a memory. But in the days from now till then, what a memory it will be.

_William Ender._

_Ward of Sheik Muhammad, Master of Legions _

_Student of Ariadne Mage Academy, Year 2, Class 8_

_12__th__ December 2012._

Fin.


	2. Character Profiles 1: Mage and Ministra

**_Sheik Muhammad, Archon of the Inquisition_**

**_Affiliation: _**The Mage Council, Mundus Magicus; Istanbul Mage Association

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet: _**Master of Legions

**_Age: _**26

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _ **Black/ Blood-red/ 177 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Quietus (Orichalum Daiklave; unleashes fire-bolts) & Celestial Fury (enchanted katana; stuns target when hit); Divine Solar Cannon pistol

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Infernal, Unholy

**_Description: _**Sheik Muhammad is a member of the Istanbul Mage Association, and is one of their more infamous members. Sheik is wolf-lean, and his body is toughened by years of wandering and war. He wields his enchanted broadsword, Quietus, and his katana, Celestial Fury, with a skill that only war can hone to perfection. He prefers durable, but comfortable, clothing and often has his nose poked in a book – which often leads to 'accidents'. He wears a suit of Orichalum articulated plate armour when in battle.

_History: _If there is one person the Holy Order wishes they could do away with, Sheik Muhammad would be their number one target. Had it not been for his excellent record of service to the Mage Council, they would have done so. The other reason is that no one in his or her right mind wants to deal with 12 angry Heroic Spirits who call the Battle-mage lover and companion – something that causes Sheik no end of embarrassment (it is true – all 12 Heroic Spirits are female, and all are bent on making sure that he turns his attention to something better than his duties to the Mage Council; they're succeeding, unfortunately!). Sheik's affinity to Infernal and Unholy Magic has antagonised the more puritanical members of the Mage Council, and Bayard would love nothing more than to see him dead.

Sheik is rumoured to have, during the Great War, made a Pact with one of the Fallen Angel Princesses of the Abyss. The stories about why are vague, but what could be uncovered through Clairvoyance was that it was done willingly, in exchange for a city being spared. That same Fallen Angel Princess, the mightiest of the ruling council of 12 next to the Morningstar herself, was not known to make Pacts with anyone – even if the one who summoned her offered his soul (and more...). Regardless, that story ended with Sheik being cast out of his homeland and taken in by a Blood Elf, who proceeded to turn Sheik into someone who would be of use to society.

The Master of Legions, while one of the Inquisition's most fearsome agents, is the one least trusted – a state of affairs which depresses the nonetheless loyal (and cheerful) Mage. He does not complain, but carries out his duties with a cold, clinical efficiency that reinforces the (already prevalent) view of him being an inhuman killer.

* * *

**_Rikku Darla Armisael, Adventurer and Treasure Hunter_**

**_Ministra Magi to the Master of Legions  
_**

**_Affiliation_:** The Morning Star Adventurers' Guild

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet: _**None

**_Age: _**23

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** Blonde/ Green/ 167 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Jade Reaper Daiklave Avalanche; Solar Caster pistol; CAS-14 Automatic Combat Shotgun (from Red Faction 2 game)

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Wind, Water

**_Description: _**Rikku is a member of one of the most renowned Guilds in the Mundus Magicus. Curvaceous, with blonde hair and green eyes, the female treasure hunter is the daughter of the chieftain of one of the tribes that calls the forbidding (name of) Desert home. Her mother was – and still is – a merchant captain whose ships ply the trade routes between the Republic of Megalomesembria, the Hellas Empire and the city of Gem, one of (name of) Desert's twelve great cities. Rikku is cheerful, kind and mischievous, and her expression screams cat whenever a wicked scheme takes shape in her mind. She prefers durable and comfortable clothing similar to that worn by Tatsumiya Mana. Loves singing and games.

**_History: _**Like many girls, Rikku Darla Armisael grew up admiring the Thousand Master. Like all of them, she hoped she would be given the chance to meet the legendary hero who had ended the Great War and whose might had laid low an ancient evil. Her parents had trained her in both the mystic and martial arts before her mother called in a few favours and got her a place in the Morning Star Adventurers' Guild. Within a year of her joining, Rikku was elevated by the Guild's Maestro to the rank of captain and was allowed to lead an expedition into the one region of the Mundus Magicus few treasure hunters would go into without the assurance of a small army at their backs: Meru.

Located on the southern Borders of Hellas, Meru had once been the demesne of one of the strongest sun-blessed demigods of a distant age. The ruins of a hundred cities and strongholds dotted the region, all bespeaking of the grandeur and glory of that bygone era. The greatest of those strongholds and cities was Pinnacle, a vast metropolis that was easily ten times larger than that of China's massive capital. History and legend described the city as being the beating heart of an entire region's trade and industry. It had been a gleaming city of vice and virtue, of wealth and poverty, of faith and heresy and of fidelity and treachery. When the Day of Wrath came when the sun-blessed demigods were cast down, Pinnacle was among the last to fall. Its people supported their ruler and his armies defended him. The usurpers finally, in fury and spite, brought to bear the Thousand-Forged Dragons unto the city, decimating it utterly and killing the Prince who ruled it. Pinnacle is a mausoleum; a cursed, haunted place where the bravest and the foolish dared tread. An ignominious death was the fate of any and all who dared its interiors without due preparation.

But it was also a place where wealth and glory awaited those who could emerge from it alive. The Academy of Ariadne, upon hearing that the Morning Star Guild was sending a group into Meru, requested that they be allowed to join them. The Guild's Maestro agreed – for a price. That expedition would bring Rikku and her compatriots face-to-face with the servants of those who had brought about the Great War (and who desired the relics and artefacts that lain buried in the city) and opened their eyes to secrets that had lain hidden for thousands of years – secrets that the hidden rulers of the Mundus Magicus wished to keep hidden for all time.

Those secrets and mysteries would eventually lead Rikku to Ostia, trying to ensure that the powerful First Age relics that her contacts in Ariadne told her about would be kept out of the hands of the Devout and their masters. It was there she would meet the feared Master of Legions, the Mage Council's foremost assassin and his Ministra Magi. In exchange for keeping Rikku and her compatriots out of jail, the female treasure hunter and her party would act as the Master of Legion's field agents – a contract that had left every member (including those the perky huntress recruited later on) rich, happy and loyal. Who knows? Maybe in a few years' time, she would have saved enough to set up a restaurant and raise a family. Now, if only she could convince the Master of Legions to quit his job and run off with her, half the battle would be won. And never mind his Heroic Spirit retinue – she was more than willing to share!

* * *

**_Majikina Mina, Priestess of the Morning Glory Shrine_**

**_Ministra Magi to the Master of Legions_**

**_Affiliation_:** Kyoto Mage Association; Sheik Muhammad – Master of Legions

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet: _**Silver Princess

**_Age: _**28

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** White/ Blue/ 170 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Long power bow Kamikaze (Star-metal Power bow); Kurohime and Shirohime (twin Jade short Daiklaves); Charms

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Ice, Lightning, Holy

**_Description: _**Mina is one of the Kyoto Mage Association's top exorcists. She is an intelligent, beautiful and aloof woman whose power is easily (almost) the equal of Eishun Konoe, the Mage Association's leader. Lean and well-endowed, with a fierce grace that reminds many of a snow leopard on the prowl, the head priestess of the Morning Glory Shrine in Kyoto has been mistaken on more than one occasion of being a model by the city's inhabitants. Mina prefers wearing the traditional clothes of her homeland when away from the battlefield. On it, she wears a suit of armour normally worn by the Night Elf Priestesses of the Moon.

**_History: _**Mina was born eight years before the Great War to Kazuya Majikina and Tomoe Asagami, both of served in the Republic of Megalomesembria as team leaders of its elite Paladin strike teams. Her parents, prior to their deployment to the front, had sent their daughter to live with their parents on Earth. Mina's grandparents sent their grandchild to the Morning Glory Shrine in Japan, where she was taught by the priestesses there how to conduct rituals and how to bear arms. The young, white-haired girl would prove to be an eager (and matured) student with a steely will and a strong mind. Her instructors were confident that, by the time she reached her 18th birthday, she would be ready to join the ranks of the Kyoto Mage Council's exorcist teams.

Her parents found joy and relief in the missives they received from their grandparents regarding their daughter's interest in her studies and in the path she had chosen to tread. Charms and gifts, crafted by their child for both her parents and their comrades, soon made their way around the unit. Mina became the de facto mascot of an embattled army fighting a war that was becoming bloodier and more senseless with each passing day. The commander of the battalion had asked Mina's parents if there was any chance if they could match-make their children. It would be, the two had thought, a wonderful step to ensuring their daughter's future.

Mina, however, thought otherwise. She wanted to find the one her grandmother, Emi Majikina, had told her was bound to her. Said individual, both the Asagami and the Majikina families found out much to their horror (and many years later), was none other than one of Sammael's Chosen. Equal in power to the dread Anathema, the Chosen served as the (mortal) generals of Hell's Five Sovereigns. So hated were the Chosen for their crimes against the inhabitants of both the Magic and Old World that the death of each was celebrated and the day of their death declared a holiday. They took comfort in the fact that the Chosen was the Mage Council's leashed dog (or demon, as the case may be) and that their daughter was the one keeping a close eye on him; the Master of Legions ranked amongst the Empress Sammael's most powerful (and favoured) generals. Should the latter get out of hand, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the Silver Princess would put him down.

But doing so, however, would severely jeopardise the plans she has for him. Plans which will no doubt unnerve everyone who knows the cool and regal Japanese priestess (including the Master of Legions, should he find out!).

_Next: The Master of Legion's Heroic Spirits – 1__ (3 extra profile chapters planned)._


	3. Character Profiles 2: Heroic Spirits 1

**Character Profiles 2: The Heroic Spirits of the Master of Legions**

**Written by Spiritblade**

**_Disclaimer: _**I do not own Magister Negi Magi or the fabulous story that Traingham is fighting to finish. Nor do I own Queen's Blade, Fate Stay Night, Ragnarok Online or Shin Megami Tensei (and a whole lot of other things) that I had lifted to make these characters possible. For now, I will present with you the first four Heroic Spirits who serve the Master of Legions.

Now, on with the profiling!

X X X

**_Strike, Servant Berserker – Cessatio, in Latin_**

**_Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):_** Berserker/ Warlord

**_Affiliation: _**Master of Legions

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet/ Real Name: _**None / Risty Thunderblade (yes, the same Risty from Queen's Blade)

**_Age: _**Unknown – in her late twenties

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** Red/ Grey/ 177 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Storm Crest (relic weapon – mace; similar in appearance to that wielded by Space Marine Chaplains – only larger – of the Warhammer 40K universe)

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Earth and Wind

**_Description: _**Strike is one of the first (four) of the Heroic Spirits that answered Sheik's call when the latter made the Contract. Tall, well-built, with lightly-tanned skin and waist-length, dark red hair, Strike is a woman who would not look out of place in a beauty pageant. Her body is tattooed with sigils of a tribe which had lived in the present Republic of Megalomesembria western provinces (known as Morroc). Strike wears fur-lined leather armour which is cut to allow her freedom of movement.

**_History:_** Strike – or Risty as she was known back then – was born in the decades after the Usurpation, when the Dragon-Blooded brought their masters, the Solars, low. Raised and trained as a blacksmith, she had helped her parents and siblings maintain and craft the weapons and armour of the soldiers and knights who had guarded her home-city of Glastheim. Her childhood had been good years, but when she grew into adulthood, that changed. Risty soon caught the eyes of the Dragon-Blooded Prince who ruled the city, who desired to add the curvaceous Moroccan woman to his harem. Strike, of course, refused – an act which served to infuriate the Dragon Lord and give her father's business rival the opening he needed to ruin him. Using his vast wealth and contacts, the man contacted those who yet served the Anathema and provided them the funds by which to fund their activities – on condition that they purchase whatever weapons and equipment they needed from his rivals.

By her twentieth birthday, Risty and her siblings were homeless and in the streets, their parents were among several who were incarcerated by the authorities for aiding 'subversive elements'. Had it not been for the Anathema known as the Eye of Justice, the Dragon Lord's soldiers would have dragged her and her sisters to the palace of their master. Said Anathema whisked them and as many of those wronged by the Dragon-Blooded Prince away from the city, armed and trained them before departing the region. The last thing he did before he left was to appoint the fiery Risty as the war-band's leader, which numbered some five-hundred strong men and women from across the Mundus Magicus.

"Defend the weak, protect the helpless and bring justice down unto the heads of the wicked. This be your oath, and this be the weapon by which the pact you make with all the powers above and below Heaven be honoured."

It was an oath Risty honored till the day the Dragon-Blooded Legions descended upon her band and killed them all. When she finally fell to the bloodied earth, the Throne of Heroes reached from across eternity and claimed her as its own, laying her on a bier of crystal to await the time when a Master whose name has yet to be written on the Book of Life. It would be many millennia before it was. And now, with her Master beside her, she wants to see how much the worlds have changed since the Second Age.

**- FVA: BYE -**

**_Widow, Servant Avenger _**

**_Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):_** Caster/ Lancer

**_Affiliation: _**Master of Legions (Really?)

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet/ Real Name: _**Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes (she looks like the Midnight Caste Abyssal from White Wolf's Exalted) / Unknown

**_Age: _**Unknown – in her mid-thirties (And don't ask - she'll kill you...)

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** Black/ Crimson/ 177 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Dire Lance Heart-splitter

**_Favoured Spell-Type:_** Darkness, Ice and Death.

**_Description: _**Widow is the second of the four Heroic Spirits that answered Sheik's call when the latter made the Contract. Sensuous and beautiful, Widow could drive most men – and no few women, Astameer included – to heights of unparalleled ecstasy by a mere glance alone, before bestowing upon them agony that would make even the most insane psychotic shiver in terror. Her skin is as white as porcelain, a contrast to the flawless mane of ebony hair that cascades over her bare, full breasts and the gleaming, master-crafted silver belt and chains that swathe her voluptuous form. Sheik cannot help but be nervous whenever Widow makes an appearance; of the twelve Heroic Spirits that have bound themselves to him, Widow is the only one that can materialize without his say-so. And the fact that she is the most powerful of them all serves only to add to his discomfort – and the worry of the other eleven (female) Heroic Spirits as well as his daemonic retainers, who know that it is only a matter of time before Widow turns her terrible might on their Master. Widow treats the Master of Legions with a mixture of disdain and twisted affection.

**_History:_** What little is known about the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes is recorded in the heavily-guarded Manse of Eternity in Ariadne and the Tower of Myths in the city of Dalaran. She had once served as the advisor the Night-Caste Solar Prince known as the Hammer of the Banishing Night before she was executed by the Eye of Justice and his peers in the decades before the Usurpation for trafficking with the very powers they had defeated in an age of myth. One thing was for certain: defeating the corrupt Twilight Caste Solar sorceress was by no means an easy task, for she was regarded as one of the few who could match Queen Merela in sheer mystical might. When the Eye of Justice managed to defeat his former comrade, the latter unleashed a Charm that created the deep, cross-shaped gorge at the heart of the Thunderspine mountain range in the Hellas Empire.

**- FVA: BYE -**

**_Lilith, Servant Caster – Lilium, in Latin_**

**_Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):_** Demonic Caster/ Sabre

**_Affiliation: _**Master of Legions

**_Race: _**Human

**_Sobriquet/ Real Name: _**The Serpent Empress / Lilith (the same Lilith from Shin Megami Tensei – lock, stock and barrel)

**_Age: _**Unknown – in her late twenties

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** Black/ Green/ 170 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Jade Reaper Daiklave Obsidian Crest

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Darkness, Fire and Lightning.

**_Description: _**Lilith is the third of the four Heroic Spirits that first answered Sheik's summons when the young Battle-mage first made the Contract. Sultry, elegant and seductive, Lilith is Widow's kinder (if such a word can be used to describe Adam's first wife) counterpart. Athletic yet buxom, with a mane of dark hair and green eyes, the Serpent Empress is the embodiment of the reasons as to why the virtuous fall and the faithful stray. Caring little for modesty, the Serpent Empress appears in scandalous garments (if at all, as she prefers appearing naked) that accentuate her figure and wearing master-worked jewellery that wealthy matrons would pay a fortune to own. Lilith has the tattoo of a silver-serpent entwined around her body, the mark of a once-mighty celestial princess who had once stood second to her Creator and who had crafted her from the same soil that had been used to fashion the father of humanity – and who had marked her Master as her own. The Serpent Empress is armed with the jade Reaper Daiklave Obsidian Crest, a beautifully crafted relic blade that had once belonged to the Dragon-Blooded courtesan Marama Anjei, who killed the Eye of Justice in the closing decades of the Usurpation, and is accompanied by an Aconite Python, a mythical creature that once existed in Eden in the ages before the idea of taking up arms against her Creator was an ember in the radiant heart of the Princess Morningstar. Lilith is almost Widow's equal in sorcerous might and can match her in armed – and unarmed – combat, but never would the Serpent Empress dream of taking the fallen Solar-turned-Heroic Spirit on without the assistance of her peers and her Master's retainers.

**_History:_** Like Widow, little is known about Lilith save what is written in myth and legend, and the latter prefers it that way. The Angelic-type Heroic Spirits and retainers within the Master of Legion's army, however, are aware of the truth keep a wary eye on the Serpent Empress as they know she is as much a threat as the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes. After all, did the Empress Sammael not approach her daughter in order to have her bring the first of the Almighty's most cherished creation to the banner of the Morningstar? Did she not lead so many kings and priests to the kingdom of Babylon itself where they drank deep of its sweet, yet poisoned, chalice? But her past transgressions matter little to the Master of Legions, who loves the Serpent Empress with a fierce yet tender passion that is addictive to her as it is to her peers. For the first time in the long, long ages Lilith has lived, she can contemplate a future free of the chains that the Creator had bound her with.

Nonetheless, the presence of Lilith and Widow condemns the Master of Legions in the eyes of his peers in the Mage Council. It is no secret that many of the Paladin Lords, Hierophants and their celestial allies (or superiors) want to utterly annihilate the Master of Legions and his vile consorts, but that dealing with an unchained

**- FVA: BYE -**

**_Devotion, Servant Caster – Devotio, in Latin_**

**_Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):_** Angelic Caster/ Lancer

**_Affiliation: _**Master of Legions

**_Race: _**Angel, Seraphim rank

**_Sobriquet/ Real Name: _**The Radiant Throne/ Camael (or Cameela, as Sheik calls her), Angel of the Cleansing Light

**_Age: _**Unknown – in her early thirties.

**_Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: _** Golden-brown/ Red/ 178 cm

**_Favoured weapon: _**Sol Irae – divine weapon (spear)

**_Favoured Spell-Type: _**Light and Elemental magic

**_Description: _**Camael is the last of the four Heroic Spirits that answered Sheik's call when the young Battle-mage first made his Contract. Courteous, elegant and intelligent, the well-endowed female angel is often mistaken by those who visit the Master of Legion's mansion to be his wife – a belief she does little to discourage. Devotion has long, honey-brown hair (three antennae included!) that frames her gentle face and which tumbles over shoulder and curve to her ankles and is graced by four enormous wings that allow her to take to air if needed. The female angel is often clad in low-cut gowns and dresses and is often – like Lilith and Strike – in the company of her Master. Devotion also has a star-shaped scar over her heart, a bitter reminder of the war and the mighty archangel who had slain her for refusing to join the rebellion. And yet, it was the first place her Master had kissed when they made love – and where her yet unborn children would rest under before they are born into a world full of myth, wonder and danger.

**_History:_** One thing is for certain, those who know who Devotion truly is are silent. Even the powers above and below Heaven will not speak; the Geas placed upon them by the will of the universe, the Throne of Heroes and the Almighty sees to that. Her appearance within the Star Chamber had caused a near uproar amongst the representatives of the Holy Host, whose expressions had become biting and arctic with the appearance of two Heroic Spirits whose names and actions had devastated realms and brought the mighty and the virtuous low. In truth, Devotion was a revered celestial heroine whose name was recorded in the Holy Host's Book of Reprisals as one of the first angels to be slain by the Morningstar herself when the latter launched her rebellion. Knowing that the Hierophant's power was a threat to her army, the Crown Princess of Heaven and her treacherous cohorts attacked the Cathedral of Crystalline Winds where Camael lived and slaughtered both the priestess and her guardians. The Radiant Throne's last act was to bring every star in the sky crashing down on her demesne in a conflagration that the Heavenly Host calls the Shattering of the Weave. The act alerted Heaven to the Morningstar's act of rebellion and brought three of Heaven's Supreme Commanders (and their elite guard) into the fray, forcing the Morningstar and what remained of her strike team to retreat of risk oblivion. But by the time the loyalist angels had reached the Cathedral's ruined inner sanctum where the torn, bloodied body of the Radiant Throne lay, they could only watch as the Throne of Heroes laid claim to her and brought her to a place beyond the jurisdiction of the King of Heaven.


	4. Character Profiles 3: Heroic Spirits 2

**Character Profiles 3: The Heroic Spirits of the Master of Legions**

**Written by Spiritblade**

_**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Magister Negi Magi or the fabulous story that Traingham is fighting to finish. Nor do I own Queen's Blade, Fate Stay Night, Ragnarok Online or Shin Megami Tensei (and a whole lot of other things) that I had lifted to make these characters possible. I now present you the second set of four Heroic Spirits that serve the Master of Legions. And yes, I do these character profiles when I get stuck on my other projects and need time to recharge.

Now, on with the profiling!

**X X X**

_**Justice, Servant Lancer – Justitia, in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Lancer

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The Seventh Heavenly Dragon / Eliza Ashborn

_**Age: **_Unknown – in her late twenties

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Midnightblue/Red/172 cm

_**Favoured weapon: **_Israel Spear relic weapon

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Fire, Earth, Holy

_**Description:**_ Eliza – or Justitia – wears crimson and gold scroll-worked armour forged out of meteoric iron over a white bodysuit. Her breastplate bears the sigil of a High Judge of the Deliberative as well as the crest of the Dragon-Blooded House she was part of and which endures to this very day. Though outwardly calm and composed, Eliza's soul blazes with an intensity that would put a volcano to shame. The red-eyed Heroic Spirit keeps her ankle-length midnight blue hair bound in buns and flowing ponytails. Eliza detests Widow and Lilith, as she sees them as the agents of the powerful rebel angel empress who keeps her Master a slave to her whims. Eliza serves as her Master's liaison to the Mage Council's Ministry of Justice and the Bounty Hunters' Guild.

_**History:**_ Eliza Ashborn is the revered ancestor of the Megalomesembrian noble House which bears her name. During the days of the High First Age, before the sundering of Creation by the rebellion of the Princess Morningstar and her peers, Eliza Firstborn – the Seventh Heavenly Dragon – had served proudly under the banner of the Golden Sun Lord known as the Prince of the Thousand Blades as one of his chief lieutenants. The fact that Eliza was but one of a few Dragon-Blooded Exalts to serve within his Council of War bespoke of the woman's prowess both on and off the battlefield.

The Prince of the Thousand Blades had been the circle mate of the Eye of Justice, one of the Deliberative's Chief Justicars, and had often sent his subordinates to serve under the latter whenever he needed help. It was during the bloodless suppression of a rebellion that the Eye of Justice and Eliza's master bestowed upon the Dragon-Blooded maiden the crown of the city she saved – an act which won the two Golden Sun Lords the support of its people that had held fast even during the chaotic years of the Usurpation and saw to their eastern territories secured from the incursions of their peers (i.e.: their fellow Solars). The ancient Megalomesembric city of Aurelian is but one of two dozen Hierarchical Cities to survive the ages, and its magnificence is a reminder of a time of glory that could be seen, heard and felt through the stories that parents and teachers tell their charges. And among those stories was the tragedy of Eliza's death. The Seventh Heavenly Dragon was slain not in battle, but by an assassin's blade. It was an act that would bring a swift end to the siege of Aurelian City even as it brought its new rulers – servants of House Amoniel – no small amount of animosity. The elders of House Ashford, upon hearing the manner in which Eliza had been slain, had immediately ordered their legions to return to the provinces held by the family – an act that their fellow Dragon-Blooded decried as treason and cowardice.

When called upon to answer for the actions of his House, the Ashford clan Patriarch's words were ones that would resound throughout the ages to come: '_If the most honourable of foes and the most just of individuals are made into the worst of criminals and executed likewise, then those who have ordered their deaths have proven themselves to be devoid of the ideals they champion. Not for you and this new Empire be the glory of the one you seek to supplant; no, you have sown the seeds of your own ruin by emulating the very traits that have led to our raising arms against our former masters.'_

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Faith, Servant Lancer – Fides, in Latin; Shinji, in Japanese**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Sabre / Caster

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_Priestess of the Thousand Stars / Mochizuki Tomoe (yes, the same Tomoe from Queen's Blade)

_**Age: **_Unknown – in her late twenties

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Black/Steel grey/165 cm

_**Favoured weapon: **_Arashi Reaper Daiklave – dai-katana type

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Wind, Holy, Water and Light

_**Description:**_ The sixth Heroic Soul to make a Contract with Sheik, Faith – or Mochizuki Tomoe – was originally the Servant of Sonia Westmarch. The latter was one of the few friends the Master of Legions had within the Mage Council, and who had died trying to imprison the Dark Lord Akrasiel Bloodraven. Calm, wise, mischievous and intelligent are words her fellow Heroic Spirits use to describe Tomoe. Daring is another – not even the mightiest of Sheik's Heroic Spirit retinue dares to antagonize the deadly and beautiful Widow. Whatever is it the dark-haired _miko_ tells the seductive demoness clearly hurts the latter beyond endurance and anger. Tomoe is clad in the traditional garments worn by the female members of Japan's ancient and still much-respected clergy, and is armed with a dai-katana reaper Daiklave which has been the bane of evil spirits and demons through the centuries she had been summoned.

_**History: **_Mochizuki Tomoe was born during the chaotic period of Japan's Sengoku period, when men like Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shinken and Uesugi Kenshin bestrode that land like titans and left legends that were etched deep into the soul and psyche of a people who loved their land and the near-mythical centuries that it had seen. The Mochizuki Clan had been loyalists of the Takeda clan, and had been instrumental in advising their lords and seeing to the rites that the samurai of that era had regarded as important to their way of life. When an army loyal to the Takeda clan marched into battle, it would do so with the priests and priestesses of the Mochizuki family in tow. In battle, the family was the equal of any samurai clan. It was a truism amongst those who faced a scion of the Mochizuki family in battle that the latter had already performed funerary rites for themselves as well as those who faced them – and that the blade that they draw from their scabbards knows the names of those whom the Fates have decreed are to cross the River Styx.

Mochizuki Tomoe would serve under her parents and her relatives in the Takeda clan's armies, learning from them her family's trade even as she learnt how brutal the era she was born in could be. But amidst such death and ruin, the dark-haired priestess shone beautifully. And when she felled six of Oda Nobunaga's Crimson Flowers, his dreaded _shinobi_ honour guard, that radiance made even the most hardened warrior of the battlefield dare to dream of war's end – and what lay beyond it. Many were the samurai and feudal lords who paid court to Tomoe for her grace, wisdom and beauty. All hoped to one day be her husband, but all were to be disappointed when another _miko_ – this one from the Asagami clan – told them that the one to win her hand and her heart stood not amongst them and would not be born for many centuries yet. Most chilling of all was the pronouncement that Tomoe would not live to see her 25th birthday – a fate that was written in the stars and whispered in the wind.

The reason why soon became clear. One of Oda Nobunaga's warlocks had made pacts with a black angel who had bestrode Creation during its First Age and who had raised his sword against the Unconquered Sun in the war that saw to the end of that golden age. In exchange for power, the warlock – a fallen _onmyo_ priest by the name of Azusa Yagami – would open gateways to the desolate realm where the corrupted champion of light was imprisoned by his peers in a bygone age of myth. At first, the warlord that the warlock answered to was pleased with the latter's efforts, but it would soon fade in the months that followed as the former learnt that the monster he thought bound to his service sought to supplant him – and that it had the power to do so. Sending emissaries to the courts of his rivals, Nobunaga Oda sought to banish the monster he had mistakenly made first amongst his many champions. The terrible battle that took place a hundred leagues from Edo would enter into the _monogatari-_stories of Japan as the Winter of Ashen Snow. Though now dismissed as a mere legend, the Lycan lore-keepers and the vampires who had taken part in that battle remembered it as a titanic clash fought under the light of a crimson moon and amidst the flames of an inferno and a rain of ash. The climax of the battle was when Tomoe and the other priests and mystics managed to execute the Gate of Judgment Charm, which allowed the deity the fallen Solar had once knelt before to drag His treacherous servant into His presence to be judged for the crimes he had committed in the long centuries since the Usurpation.

But the price for victory had been high: Tomoe died from her wounds and had, in her final moments, appealed to the powers that be for the strength to make an end of the fallen Solar. The Throne of Heroes answered her call and had, in exchange for making her an instrument of its will, given her the power she needed to complete her task. For over three hundred years, Tomoe had fought in no less than four Grail Wars and had, in the process, acquired vast amounts of fighting experience and refined her Charms till they were the equal of a Caster's. Now, she is ready to win the war that her grandmother had told her she would be part of

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Shadow, Servant Assassin – Umbra, in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Assassin / Caster

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Dark Elf

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_ The Serpentine Herald/ Echidna Ashwing (yes, the same Echidna from Queen's Blade)

_**Age: **_Unknown – in her late twenties; in truth, three hundred years old (during the time of the Usurpation)

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Ash blonde/Amber-gold/174 cm

_**Favoured weapon: **_Wavecleaver Daiklave – Fangs of the Hydra; Short Daiklave (Sai-type martial art weapon; spell-breaker) – Bringer of Twilight

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Wind, Ice and Nature

_**Description:**_ Echidna Ashwing is the seventh Heroic Spirit to make a pact with the Master of Legions. Voluptuous, sensuous and deadly, the Dark Elf Heroic Spirit is the Master of Legion's chief assassin. She has long ash-blonde hair bound up in a ponytail, and wears garments that reveal and compliment her considerable feminine assets. The Serpentine Herald's weapons are always on hand and the sultry gaze she gifts any who approach her or her master is a warning that any act she (or her master) deems hostile will be met with deadly force.

_**History:**_ The Serpentine Herald, Echidna Ashwing, is a cold-blooded killer whose exploits before and during the Usurpation were legendary. In the decades before the Usurpation, Echidna was the commander of the Night Caste Solar Star Dagger's Silver Cobra Legion – a secret police dedicated to ensuring that the enemies of the Deliberative met ignominious (and bloody) ends. And some of these enemies were some of the Solar Queen Merela's Golden Sun Lords. When Echidna and a dozen of her peers were appointed by the Deliberative's Imperialist faction to send one of the pillars of the Deliberative across the River Styx, the dark elf would never realize how her one action would change history. It showed the Dragon-Blooded that the demigods that they had followed across the centuries to glory and into ruin and decadence could die.

Acquiring the proper Charms that Echidna had used to send the immortal souls of the Solars to Oblivion and Final Death, the Dragon-Blooded launched their coup. Echidna and the Silver Cobra Legion, like many of the Deliberative's loyalist armies, defied their erstwhile peers. Dragon-Blooded slew Dragon-Blooded in a frenzy not seen since the Great War against the Titans, and Solars turned their Daiklaves and their Charms on those whom they had trusted for decades in a bitter rage that would be immortalized in the centuries after the Usurpation was a memory. It was at the height of the Battle of the Imperial Manse that Echidna was made a Heroic Spirit, her body torn to bloody ruin by the Charms and weapons of her enemies and her blades wet with the blood of no less than three dozen of the Elemental Dragons and their elite guard.

Echidna would fight in no less than a dozen Holy Wars, each of which honed her already formidable skills to a degree that few across the ages could match. Her skills were such that she had fought the feared Hassan I-Sabbah, the legendary Grandmaster of Assassins, to a standstill in the Fourth Holy Lance War that was held in the Middle East during the 1960s. The latter had praised Echidna before sending her back to the Throne of Heroes, and looked forward to crossing swords with her once more should the Fates – and the Almighty – wish it. Hassan I-Sabbah would get his wish; the powerful Servant Assassin, summoned once more some ten years after the Fifth Holy Grail War held in Misaki City, is now the Servant of one of Astameer's lieutenants (and lovers), Lord Rygard Perenolde. The latter wants his mistress's hated enemy, the Master of Legions, dead, an aim that coincides with his Servant's goal of proving himself superior to one who has seen an era that could only be glimpsed and felt through the stories and songs of tale-tellers and dreamers.

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Truth, Servant Archer – Veritas, in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Archer

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The White Rose / Luna Himeki (from Vanguard Princess)

_**Age: **_Early twenties

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Crimson/ Green/ 172 cm

_**Favoured weapon: **_ 2x master-crafted light Essence Cannons (they look like ornate, French-made flintlock pistols**)**; 2xShort Daiklave – Velvet Rose and Silken Whisper

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Elemental & Light

_**Description:**_ Truth – or Veritas, as she is known in Latin – was the eighth Servant to make a pact with the Master of Legions when the latter acquired the Iron Crown which had been worn by her father during the First Age. Said relic is now part of the Master of Legion's battle-regalia, a potent reminder to his enemies (and allies) within the Mage Council of the power he has at his disposal. Luna's silky mane of red hair shimmers and sways with every step, and her curvaceous body is clad in a low-cut dress that would not look out of place on a high-class courtesan and which allows her considerable freedom of movement. The guns she wields, like her choker, are embossed with the sigil of the Peacekeepers of the First Age, an indication that she had been a member of that august order. Though outwardly cheerful and an incorrigible prankster, Luna is known to lapse into long periods of brooding silence in which she would be found in the company of her Master.

_**History**_: Luna is perhaps the only Solar in the Master of Legion's retinue of Heroic Spirits and whose spats with Strike are well-known, for they had once stood on opposite sides of the law in a bygone era and who now curse the Fates for sticking them together in the same room and contesting for the affections of the same master. The red-haired siren was the daughter of a powerful Solar of the Dawn Caste who was the least promising of his children in terms of Exaltation, but the most promising when it came to potential. A word in the right ears and a favour called in, and Luna was made a cadet in the Peacekeeper Academy. She soared. By 16 years of age, Luna had not only been made a full-fledged member of the Peacekeeper force. By 18, she had **earned** on her own merit the Sword of Command. By 20, Luna was in command of three elite strike teams dedicated to ensuring that subversive elements within the Deliberative were brought to heel. Luna's father ruled the Helkeginia region, which was located south of Ariadne and west of Ostia, where the Imperial Manse was located – and which history and myth remembered as one of the most heavily fought for regions in the closing days of the Usurpation.

The citizens of Helkeginia have long been supporters of the Deliberative, a stance brought about by the manner in which the region's Solar Masters governed the region. When the Usurpation took place, Helkeginia was the first to send its elite strike teams to strike at the Dragon-Blooded rebels and their hosts. Luna had been placed in charge of the teams that were tasked with extricating as many Solars from Ostia as quickly as she could – a mission that would see to her bearing witness to the end of an era. It was during that mission that Luna would meet Echidna of the Silver Cobra Legion, which would ignite a rivalry that would extend through the ages of Creation when the two were made Heroic Spirits. Luna represented the noble principles by which the Solar Deliberative was built upon; Echidna represented the brutal necessity by which it was allowed to endure. Neither could stand the other, even though both had common goals. But respect each other they did, and Echidna bought Luna the time she needed to extricate as many (badly-injured) Solar and Lunar Exalts from Ostia, even though it cost the dark elf guild-mistress her life and half of her Legion. Luna would meet her end a year later during the Battle of the Tower of Silence, when the Dragon-Blooded sky-ship fleets and legions overwhelmed that Manse's formidable defences in a sixty-day long siege was one that would be immortalized in the pages of the Magic World's history books. Those books failed to capture the bitter hatred that powered every sword strike and Charm unleashed during that battle, or to justify the atrocities that would be committed in its aftermath in the name of justice. Seeing a chance to goad a hated enemy to rashness and to break the courage of those armies who still knelt before the Anathema, the Dragon-Blooded nobles had had Luna and the survivors of the battle tortured and crucified, before having the images beamed throughout the Deliberative, a warning to all who defied the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate. Kneel before the new masters of Creation, the Dragon Lords commanded, or be branded a heretic and die.

Before the Battle of the Tower of Silence, there were still Solars who wanted to negotiate with the Dragon-Blooded in hopes of averting a Creation-wide war. Before that battle, there had been many Dragon-Blooded Houses who viewed their cause – despite the atrocities committed – of overthrowing the Solars as righteous. In the days after, the Celestial Exalts and their loyalist soldiers would smite their enemies without mercy, pouring scorn and contempt upon those who believed themselves their betters. Dragon-Blooded Houses who had once supported their brethren in the crusade soon withdrew their support; they saw their peers becoming the very monsters they sought to defeat. The Battle of the Tower of Silence had served only to tarnish the honour and dignity of the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons; the Titans' Great Curse upon the Almighty's Solar and Lunar champions had finally sank its talons deep into the soldiers of His generals – and the outcome was nothing but tragic.

But by then, Luna was beyond caring. The White Rose had already been taken by the Throne of Heroes to fight in a war only a select few could be part of. The female Solar would fight in no less than three dozen Holy Wars, the first being in the years when Christ walked the Earth. The latter had been startled when the White Rose crossed his path, but had smiled in a pleased fashion that told the Heroic Spirit that he knew who and what she was, and that he was aware that the Holy Wars were a part of his Father's Great Work.

"Go with my Father's blessing," the Saviour had whispered, "One day, you and yours will be free. The sun that set during the War in Heaven will rise once more, cradled by the moon and led to its zenith by a young prince granted a black gift by his teacher and bequeathed to his lovers who will sire his children. And the young vampire king will not be alone. He will have by his side a Horseman, this one claimed by one of my Father's rebellious daughters, and whose strength will be lever upon which a new age would turn."

It would be over two thousand years before what the Saviour said made sense, and it excited the White Rose. The cycle was turning, and the stars were right: Ostia, capital of the Solar Deliberative, cast down during the Usurpation and reduced to ruins by the War in Heaven, would rise once more. Creation was on the verge of returning to the Glorious Age once more – and she and her daughters would live to see it.


	5. Character Profiles 4: Heroic Spirits 3

**Character Profiles 4: The Heroic Spirits of the Master of Legions**

**Written by Spiritblade**

_**Disclaimer: **_I do not own Magister Negi Magi or the fabulous story that Traingham is fighting to finish. Nor do I own Queen's Blade, Fate Stay Night, Ragnarok Online or Shin Megami Tensei (and a whole lot of other things) that I had lifted to make these characters possible. I now present you the second set of four Heroic Spirits that serve the Master of Legions. And yes, I do these character profiles when I get stuck on my other projects and need time to recharge.

Now, on with the profiling! This one shall be the last character profile chapter of my story which I made on behalf of Traingham, the man who made the epic Magister Negi Magi story: Fang Vice Addiction and By Your Enrapture.

**X X X**

_**Sword, Servant Assassin – Gladius, in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Assassin / Sabre

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The Black Crane of Ice / Chiharu Tohno (similar in face and feature to Rangiku Matsumoto from the Bleach anime)

_**Age:**_ Unknown – Early twenties

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Blonde/ Light green/ 166 cm

_**Favoured weapon(s): **_Katana and swords

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **__Iaido_-_Suzaku no Ken _(similar to skills used by the Samurai Class in Final Fantasy Tactics game); Black Sword Arts (similar to those used by the Dark Knight class in Final Fantasy Tactics)

_**Description:**_ Chiharu Tohno wears a black _gi_ and _hakama, _the colours of which denote her as an Exorcist of the Mage Council's Eastern Branch. Of all the Heroic Spirits in the service of the Master of Legions, Chiharu – known better as Gladius – is both the youngest (in that she had died and was elevated some seventy years ago) and whose panoply is not as ostentatious as her peers. Nonetheless, Chiharu's arsenal – used in combination with her clan's Iaido skills and her Black Sword Arts – is capable of healing even the direst wounds of her Master and her compatriots even as it can inflict no small amount of harm. Chiharu has green eyes and waist length blonde hair. Voluptuous, broad-minded and mischievous, she delights in playing light-hearted pranks on her Master's colleagues and her fellow Heroic Spirits. Loves books and alcohol.

_**History:**_ Chiharu Tohno was born in the decades after the Meiji Restoration to Johann von Alstreim, a German businessman, and Sayumi Tohno, the daughter of a Japanese politician. The families of both parties had links to the Mage Council, the latter of which sent one of their retired Justicars to tutor the three children of their union in hopes of further strengthening their power base in the _Mundus Veteres_ (or the Old World, as is known amongst the inhabitants of the Magical World). The eldest son, Mikagami Tohno would eventually marry Mikako Konoemon, the mother of the current Headmaster of Mahora High. The second-born son, Lucian Tohno, and the youngest, Chiharu Tohno, would join the organization's Exorcist teams. Both would eventually lead Exorcist teams of their own, and bring honour and grief in equal measure to their families.

The two would come face to face in their final days against an Anathema, a demigod of staggering power whom many in the present described as one of the few who could equal the Master of Legions in sheer power. In a bygone age of legend, the Anathema had been one of the Solar Deliberative's Hundred Generals and who had, in the days of the Usurpation by their Dragon-Blooded soldiers, been one of the few whose armies and stratagems had bled the rebellious children of the Elemental Dragons white before being forced to retreat with what was left of his army to follow his Empress into hiding. Lucian Tohno would turn and become part of the Anathema's honour guard. His younger sister did not, and would die on the end of the Anathema's Daiklave. The last thing she saw was the Anathema's grieving face and his promise that when she strode the world once more, she would have the strength to change the world – something her brother had given up when he swore fealty to the vengeful demigods that sought to return Creation to its rightful rulers.

Chiharu would be summoned when the Master of Legions and the Night Elf Sentinel Army fought against the maddened Night Elf demigod – a Keeper of the Grove by the name of Del'Aras – and his army of twisted forest spirits on the sacred grounds of the Moon Spire. The event that had led to the summoning had been the death of a Night Elf High Warden; the latter had perished trying to give the Master of Legions time to finish his casting of the Incarnadine Heavenly Thunder Charm that would allow him to subdue Del'Aras. Her blood had corrupted the magical circle used to cast the Charm and sent a fierce, shrill cry to the Throne of Heroes to send aid – one with the strength to challenge the terrible army the corrupted Keeper of the Grove had brought with him. The entity who sat on the Throne, seeing that the one who would be the newly-summoned Servant's Master was dead, inscribed another set of Command Seals on one already known to it – and laughed uproariously as said individual (and half of the Heroic Spirits in his service) swore virulently as reality itself shook as the Master of Legion's newly-summoned Servant manifested in the mortal world.

The arrival of Chiharu turned the tide of the battle firmly in the favour of the Night Elf Sentinel Army, but the maddened demigod would not be denied his vengeance on those he believed to be responsible for the death of his consort. The Charm Del'Aras with his final breath not only killed more than half the Night Elf army that had accompanied the Master of Legions, but also desecrated the very grounds they had given their lives to defend. The spirits of the Night Elf race's most revered heroes and heroines were cast into the Abyss despite the Master of Legion's best efforts and into the waiting arms of the Empress of Wrath, an act that had the Demon Queen's rivals green with envy and elevating the Master of Legions further up in the ranks of the Unholy Host. The outcome of the Battle of the Emerald Forest would earn the Battlemage no small amount of enmity from the Night Elves, especially from those whose ancestors were laid to rest within the Shrine that had been built there. Had the Mage Council and several of the High Wardens that had survived the battle not intervened, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the Master of Legions would have been executed by those he had tried to protect.

"_Be patient,"_ he had told his accusers, _"my punishment will come sooner than you think. Before the turn of the fiftieth year, I will know the bite of that which even immortals fear."_

It was that terrible event which her Master spoke of that she and her fellow Heroic Spirits were trying to avert. The path upon which her Master trod was bound to end in one of three ways: death, damnation or daemonhood. The last was a most likely possibility, as the first two are placed far beyond his reach. And maybe, just maybe, should there be a miracle, they would win that which many of the damned sought but rarely find: salvation – and forgiveness.

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Empress, Servant Rider – Imperatris, in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Rider / Lancer

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The White Reaper / Bennu D'Avenant

_**Age:**_ Unknown – late thirties

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_White / Red/ 177 cm

_**Favoured weapon(s): **_Pole-arms and swords.

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Elemental Charms

_**Description:**_ Bennu is a regal and attractive dark-skinned Germanic woman with flowing, white hair and red eyes. Clad in ornate gleaming battle-plate adorned with the draconic crest still used by the Tepes Clan's honour guard, and is armed with a master-crafted broadsword, shield and lance. The White Reaper of Clan Tepes rides upon a daemonic war-horse once ridden by one of the Anathema.

_**History:**_ Bennu D'Avenant was born in Megalomesembria in the years before the Seventh Eclipse Crusade, some two thousand years ago, to a Magister Magi and his Ministra Magi, both of whom had been retainers in the service of Clan Tepes. During that time period, Clan Tepes had yet to join the ranks of the vampire clans, but its warriors were easily the equal of the Mage-Knights of the era. Even so, the ferocious cavalry charges of the clan's knights were legendary, their fearless warriors the pride of the Dragon Banner that was the clan's emblem. It was in this harsh yet closely-knit environment that the White Reaper of Clan Tepes grew up in. Devotion, strength, loyalty and courage – virtues upheld by a clan whose descendants who would stand tall and proud amongst some of the powerful monsters in Creation centuries later. Clan records state that it was the White Reaper who won the first battle that turned the tide during of the Seventh Eclipse Crusade, and whose lance had accounted for five of the First and Forsaken Angel's Dragon-Blooded Forsaken elite before she met her end at the hands of the Dusk Caste Abyssal Exalt Thousand Obsidian Blades. The latter had been long-impressed by Bennu's prowess both on and off the battlefield and had extended an offer of marriage as well as the crown of any kingdom in the _Mundus Magicus_ of her choosing should she swear fealty to his mistress. Even as she breathed her last, Bennu refused the bloody eternity that the Abyssal offered her.

In desperation, Thousand Obsidian Blades used every Charm in his considerable repertoire – including the ones forbidden to him – to return Bennu back to life. But neither the Fates nor the Ashen King would tolerate the foolish Abyssal trying to break laws that have been set by the King of Heaven during the Springtime of Creation. Nor did said King tolerate his treacherous champion calling upon Him. The flood of divine power reduced Bennu's body to ash and sent her soul to the Throne of Heroes, beyond the power of any deity in Creation to resurrect.

Bennu was among the first Heroic Spirits to participate in the First Holy Grail War (also known as the Reckoning) over a thousand years ago, a feat that has earned her even the esteem of the King of Heroes. The White Reaper had served under Eliza von Einzbern during that War – an event which shocked the Lords of Clan Tepes and which saw to them sending an emissary to the Mage Council to confirm that the patron Saint and founder of Clan Tepes's Knightly Order of the Dragonslayers had been raised to a rank more exalted than that of the Almighty's servants – that of a Heroic Spirit.

It wasn't long before word of Bennu's resurrection reached the ears of the badly-scarred Thousand Obsidian Blades, and the Abyssal has long sought the artefacts that would allow him to summon his beloved nemesis to his side and allow them to ride against Creation as he had always wanted. Time and again he failed. This time, in the modern era of the _Mundus Veteres_, the Abyssal has all that he needs to bind the White Reaper to his cause. The only problem – and a big one at that – is that Bennu's current master, a fearsome monster whom even the First and Forsaken Angel acknowledges is reluctant to cross, is unwilling to surrender her.

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Messenger, Servant Archer – Nunticus in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Archer / Rider

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Human

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The Eye of Freya / Aldis of the Vale

_**Age:**_ Unknown (in her late twenties)

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Silver/ Golden/ 168 cm

_**Favoured weapon(s): **_Long Jade power-bow Heart-Striker; Grand Daiklave Executioner

_**Favoured Spell-Type:**_ Wind and Ice

_**Description:**_ Aldis of the Vale is a voluptuous, silver-haired beauty whose golden eyes are bright with life and mischief. She is clad in clothing and armour that allows her freedom of movement and to stir the passions of those who look upon her. Her weapons – the Jade Chakram and Grand Daiklave – were made in the image of the weapons she had wielded in life. Aldis also wears a circlet with a single horn, which allows her to summon her Dire Wolf mount into battle. The latter is a monstrous creature the size of a bus, and is armoured from snout to tail in ornate barding adorned with runes of warding.

_**History:**_ Aldis of the Vale was the daughter of a Viking chieftain whose hosts had plied the seas and waterways of Europe in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Beautiful, sensuous and proud, Aldis was courted by many and won by none. Equal to the men of her clan in the use of the bow, the sword and the spear, she had been a much-beloved exception to the laws of her people. In song and dance, she weaved tale and melody with a skill that would have no peer in the decades after her death. In war, she was a glorious Valkyrie who praised courage and scorned weakness. In peace, she made firm the treaties and laws that made her people strong. No father could be as proud of his child as Aldis's had. It had stunned the latter when his liege lord, upon receiving an emissary of said Empire, heard the bodyguard of the latter singing one of his daughter's songs.

But like Baldur, the much beloved Norse deity of the sun who was slain by the treachery of his brother, Aldis's end was foretold and her soul promised by Odin to the Throne of Heroes. Aldis and her bodyguard had been ambushed by the witch-hunters of the Holy Roman Empire who had declared her a witch and a servant of the Dark Powers, sent to turn the faithful from the Creator, when she had been en route to one of her father's holdings. The Church Inquisitors burnt Aldis at the stake, an act which saw to the treaty the latter had worked so hard to make possible rendered null and void and to more than a dozen Viking clans assembling to pay the craven followers of the Church suffer for their perfidy.

Aldis, like Bennu, is one of the first Heroic Spirits to participate in the Reckoning and who had fought against the Heroic Spirit who had been the Prophet Muhammad's Servant, Ali, during the Second Holy Grail War. It is whispered a heretical Muslim sect that Aldis was in fact the Archangel Gabriel herself, something which amuses the Heroic Spirit (even Ali himself) to no end. Nonetheless, Aldis is deeply annoyed that her former nemesis (i.e.: Bennu) is challenging her for the affections of her new Master. The former doesn't mind that there are other women – Heroic Spirit or otherwise – doing the same, but do the Fates (and the Throne of Heroes) really have to toss the White Reaper into the mix? On the other hand, however…the current state of affairs excites Aldis. Big families – like the one she had been part of during her mortal days and the one she intends to set up – are a mark of a prosperous home (and a very, **VERY** happy man….).

**- FVA: BYE -**

_**Fury, Servant Berserker – Furor in Latin**_

_**Servant Type (Class/ sub-class):**_ Berserker / Sabre

_**Affiliation: **_Master of Legions

_**Race: **_Elf

_**Sobriquet/ Real Name: **_The Thunderous Blade / Lucia Tamerlyne

_**Age:**_ Unknown (90 years old at time of death)

_**Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: **_Dark pink / Green/ 167 cm

_**Favoured weapon(s): **_Grand Daiklave

_**Favoured Spell-Type: **_Elemental Charms

_**Description:**_ Lucia Tamerlyne is a buxom half-elf whose strong body is protected by the jade and silver reinforced breastplate and bracers she had worn during her time as a Dynast of the Shogunate. Lucia is a Dragon-Blooded of the Wood Aspect, a child of one of the Five Elemental Dragons. Her anima banner is that of a great Wood Dragon whose eyes and wooden scales writhe with flame, an indication that her sire was of the Fire Aspect. Lucia is armed with a master-crafted Grand Daiklave granted to her by her elven Dragon-Blooded mother who had once served as a captain of the Hellas Empire. There is always an amused smirk on the half-elf Dragon-Blooded, and it becomes a predatory grin when her Master (and lover) sets her on his enemies.

_**History:**_ Lucia is perhaps the youngest Heroic Spirit in the retinue of the Master of Legions. Born some two hundred years prior, Lucia was a young officer within the Enforcers of Hellas when tensions between the Empire of Hellas and the Republic of Megalomesembria had been at their lowest point since the Twelfth Border War some seventy years prior. Neither country was aware that they were being manipulated by the First and Forsaken Angel's agents, that their brief two-year conflict allowed for the fallen Solar Empress's lieutenants to establish numerous covens and strongholds within the _Mundus Magicus_. Many of these cults – for lack of a better word – masked their activities under a veneer of legitimacy. From the palatial mansions of respectable merchants to the fortresses where the banners of mercenary armies flew, the Covens of the Thousand Serpents – as they were later known – worked towards building their strength and influence for the time when their mistress bade them to strike. But the actions of one such coven would force the rest into hiding and turn the eyes of the authorities in both Megalomesembria and Hellas to the shadows where an ancient, vengeful enemy laid waiting. Unsure if the recent acts of sabotage and murders were the work of their enemies, a Field Marshall of Hellas arranged a secret meeting with one of the Inquisitor Lords of the Mage Council and shared all that he knew with the latter. What emerged from their discussion was a picture neither liked, and which could fan the embers of an already volatile political situation into an inferno of a new War.

No, the only way to deal with the Cult of a Thousand Serpents – as the First and Forsaken Angel's covens were known – was to dispatch an elite kill-team. It took both the Inquisitor Lord and the Hellas Field Marshall two full weeks to assemble a team. Lucia was chosen to be one of them, due in no small part to her ability to keep her mouth quiet regarding such clandestine operations as well as her ability to deal with any daemonic soldiers such cults were capable of summoning to defend them. The investigations Lucia and her comrades undertook led them into places where life was cheap and death easy to come by. Each fresh hell they saw led to them acquiring a clue as to the ultimate aim of the Cults – and it made both Lucia and her compatriots tremble.

The First and Forsaken Angel was readying her hosts for an Eclipse Crusade that would dwarf all that she had led into Creation since the Usurpation. Binding pacts were called into account, and armies were being amassed for the one singular goal of burning the Empire of Hellas and the Republic of Megalomesembria – both the creations of the Dragon-Blooded High Lords – to the ground. Realizing the magnitude of what they had uncovered, Lucia and her comrades – those left living – rushed to meet the men who had sent them on their mission. And there, the survivors were betrayed. Both the Field Marshall of Hellas and the Mage Council's Inquisitor Lord had turned, and had committed their forces to those of the First and Forsaken Angel's. Lucia and her compatriots fought as hard as they could to escape the Inquisitor Lord's citadel, but they were soon cut down by the Heroic Spirits and the bodyguards that accompanied the two.

It is a bitter joke on the part of the Fates that the Heroic Spirit who slew her all those years ago is the same one that now serves the seductive and deadly Astameer La'Felle. The latter is both amused and outraged by the fact that the Throne of Heroes had elevated a half-elven mongrel to the exalted rank of a Heroic Spirit as the latter had not done anything noteworthy to merit her ascension. Lucia has sworn to settle accounts with Astameer's Servant, a reckoning that is all but assured as the relationship between her Master and the Lady Astameer is acrimonious at best.


End file.
